The Cold War was the dominant international conflict of the post-World War II era. Other important developments, many of them related, include decolonization and the regional conflicts it spawned, the spread of democracy, the rising economic power of Pacific rim countries, the emergence of China as a great power and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Cold War has been analyzed in terms of fear and appetite; realists and traditional historians emphasize the former and revisionists the latter. The study of foreign policy and international relations has once again ignored the spirit and the ways in which striving for recognition and standing helped to shape the Cold War and contributed to its demise.